Published by Douglas Messerli, the World Cinema Review features full-length reviews on film from the beginning of the industry to the present day, but the primary focus is on films of intelligence and cinematic quality, with an eye to exposing its readers to the best works in international film history.

Geeta Patel and Ravi Patel | Meet the Patels

What
to do if you’re a 30-year old American and East Indian ancestry, with a father
anxious to see you married and a mother known for her matchmaking arts? You
give in, naturally, and, after traveling to India to meet dozens of your women
who share your last name—in this case Patel—you travel throughout the US and
Canada on one long series of dates with women whom your parents have chosen based
on education, skin-color (wheatish, apparently is the preferred color) and—if
you are a young actor with a filmmaking sister—you document the endless search!

If this all sounds like a kind
nightmarish version of Four Weddings and
a Funeral, take heart. Despite some teeth-grating moments, particularly
when hero arrives in the small Indian hometown of his parents in Gujarat, where
everyone is a kind of “relative”—with all of them insisting it is time for Ravi
to tie the knot—the dozens of speed-dating encounters that follow are not at
the center of this charming film. What we discover, instead, is that even a
pair of anxious, interfering and often dominating parents such as Champa V and
Vasant K. Patel, are charming, funny, loving folk who have brought up their
talented children, Geeta and Ravi, with love and near endless patience, while
still maintaining a deep love for one another. If the Patel parents may be one
of the most intrusive on the planet, they are still very loving folk, and are
born comedians.

Certainly to most contemporary Americans,
the very idea of an arranged marriage seems distasteful. But then, most
marriages are, in some small manner, arranged affairs: most couples meet
because they live in the same city, have gone through similar educational
experiences, and share ideals and values. As many exceptions as there are to
these patterns, we basically rely mostly on the “arrangements” we have made
with our lives, even if we often ignore the advice our elders in choosing a
life-time companion. At least in the Indian ideal, the parents have some
reliable information in the form of a sort of idealized resume which describe as
“bio-data.” Besides, the actual process of falling in love is still up the
couple themselves, and it appears that, despite the joyfully long marriage of
their parents, the beautiful Geeta and affable Ravi are having a difficult time
of committing to others. At least, on screen.

Before the film has begun, however, it increasingly becomes apparent
that Ravi has found the girl for him, a beautiful, red-head, well-bred
Connecticut woman, named Audrey. The only problem is that he hasn’t bothered to
discuss it with his parents, and apparently still, himself, believes that it’s
preferable to marry a woman of Indian descent. In fact, the biggest problems
for this family are their own sometimes not so hidden racial distinctions and
inbred familial attitudes.

As time passes, and date after date falls
flat, Geeta begins querying her sibling about the girl with whom he has broken
up—and yet still occasionally is still “seeing.” It finally begins to come to a
boil when Audrey herself finally lays down some rules: she can no longer see
Ravi if there’s no possibility of sharing her life with on a permanent basis.

When Ravi finally reveals to mom and dad
that he has been seeing a girl who he truly loves, it is the father who is more
accepting, convinced that his angry wife, Champa, will eventually come around.
Yet she seems determined in her anger, and it is only when she and her son sit
for a serious talk, that she reveals her anger is centered on his not having
honest with her; she is not insistent that he marry only someone within his
race. And the last few scenes show the obviously good cook explaining to Audrey—who
Ravi had to plead long and hard to return to him—how to make the family’s
favorite foods.

Now, if only Geeta….we’ll have to wait
until Meet the Patels II comes out,
as it well may some day. Surely, Vasant might be hired as the publicist the
next time around. Reportedly, in the many venues in which this charming film first
premiered, he called up all the Patels in each city, inviting them to attend
the event. Lines formed around the blocks. Even in the Sundance Theater in Los
Angeles where I saw this film with my companion Howard, the house was packed
with Indians! But then, the actor and his sister apparently live nearbt, so I was
glad to have been able to have met our neighbors.